LOS ANGELES — The Lakers’ roller coaster of a season, and the emotions that come with it, continued in their 128-121 home loss to the Golden State Warriors Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.
There were the highs of LeBron James scoring a season-high-tying 40 points to keep the Lakers in the game.
But there were the lows of Anthony Davis leaving the game early because of an eye contusion, with Davis being limited to 12 first-quarter minutes after getting hit in the left eye by Trayce Jackson-Davis on a layup.
And then there was the weirdness of the final two minutes – which took nearly 22 minutes of real-time to finish because of reviews and malfunctioning shot clocks.
Davis’ exit from Saturday’s game was immediately felt.
Golden State, led by Stephen Curry (31 points, six rebounds and five assists), Jonathan Kuminga (23 points, four assists) and Klay Thompson (26 points off the bench), got into the paint with ease once Davis was no longer on the floor.
The Warriors scored just four points in the paint in the 12 first-quarter minutes that Davis played.
They scored 58 in the final three quarters, feasting off direct drives to the basket or passes into the paint against the Lakers’ smaller lineups.
Already without their bigger frontcourt players in Jarred Vanderbilt, Christian Wood and two-way big man Colin Castleton, in addition to Gabe Vincent and Cam Reddish, the Lakers used Jaxson Hayes as the lone big man in the rotation for the final three quarters.
The Lakers, who trailed 102-93 at the end of the third and by as many as 12 (113-101) midway through the fourth, made a comeback attempt led by James scoring six consecutive points to trim the deficit to 113-107. D’Angelo Russell, who had a 23-point, 13-assist double-double, had nine points and six assists in the second half.
James appeared to cut the deficit to 124-120, and score a season-high 41 points, on a fadeaway corner 3-pointer over Curry with 2:07 left. But the officials took the 3…
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